Phantom call traffic is call traffic received at a terminating local communications exchange, where associated call signaling lacks sufficient information for the terminating local exchange to determine an appropriate jurisdiction of the call or a carrier responsible for call termination charges. The terminating local exchange may not be able to bill and receive compensation from responsible originating parties. Most Local Exchange Carriers (LECs), Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) and Independent Operating Carriers (IOCs) that terminate calls at their respective local exchanges experience some degree of phantom call traffic. In some estimates, between 20% and 30% of all terminating inter-carrier traffic cannot be billed due to insufficient information, thus resulting in significant loss of revenue for the LECs, CLECs and IOCs.
Reasons for the occurrence of phantom call traffic are many and varied. Some phantom calls may have been delivered over numerous communications exchanges, each of which may be owned and/or operated by a different service provider. Differences between architectures, signaling, call detail and billing systems of these numerous communications exchanges may result in inaccurate (and in some cases, impossible) billing of termination charges. In some cases, legacy issues may exacerbate phantom traffic. For example, legacy exchanges along a call route may be limited to routing based on destination number only, and may not be able to forward sufficient detail for billing purposes. Also, inter-exchange signaling protocols may not easily support the data required for accurate billing of calls, especially with the addition of new types of communication access technologies such as wireless, broadband, and others.
Indeed, newer communication access technologies themselves may exacerbate phantom call traffic, e.g., a roaming wireless call may have a calling number that does not correspond to an exchange from which the call originates. Furthermore, in some markets, termination charges for local calls are significantly less than termination charges for access calls, thus motivating some originating or intermediate carriers to mask their carrier identity to take advantage of the lower local termination charges. Other reasons for phantom call traffic may be possible, all of which may result in insufficient information for a terminating local exchange to correctly bill termination charges, if at all.